Robot soccer is a game similar to the "classical" soccer (football) with one significant difference: the players are not humans but robots. Usually, the robots are miniature wheeled mobile vehicles because of their easy mechanical construction and control. Each team consists of several players, one of them is the goal keeper. Robots have to be fully autonomous, controlled by the computer. The color camera connected to the computer is used for gaining the information about the position of individual players and the ball. The game between two teams (each having its own camera and computer) is running without the human intervence, with the exception of foul or stalemate situation, when the game is interrupted and a free kick or penalty kick is called. The game is supervised by the human referee.
Although this project may look like the funny game at the first glance, it is a serious interdisciplinary research problem involving areas like microelectronics, robotics, control, image processing, communications, and artificial intelligence.
The idea of robot soccer is originated in 1995, when prof. Jong-Hwan Kim of KAIST, Korea, initiated an international organizing committee for Micro-Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (MiroSot). After the MiroSot game rules were given in 1996, the first MiroSot '96 championship was held at KAIST. Since that time MiroSot tournaments are organized regularly every year at various places in the world. Teams interested in robot soccer are joined together in Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA).
Robot soccer tournaments are organized for following robot categories:
Humanoid Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (HuroSot)
Single Humanoid Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament(S-HuroSot)
Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (RoboSot)
Single Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (S-RoboSot)
Micro Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (MiroSot)
Single Micro Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (S-MiroSot)
Nano Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (NaroSot)
Single Nano Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (S-NaroSot)
Khepera Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (KheperaSot)
Single Khepera Robot World Cup Soccer Tournament (S-KheperaSot)
Detailed description of particular categories and related rules can be found at www.fira.net.
The most interesting category is MiroSot. A match shall be played by two teams, each consisting of three (Small League), five (Middle League), seven (Large League) or eleven (X-Large League) robots for each team. Robots are playing on a rectangular playground 150 x 130 cm (this size is for Small League play, it differs for other leagues) with 5 cm high white side walls. An orange golf ball is used as the ball. Robots are wireless (usually radio) controlled from the host computer, which is responsible for the game strategy. The scene is viewed by a color camera. Image processing techniques are used for determination of the position of all players and the ball. Usually, the individual robots possess no own intelligence.